Canada`s Plans For Emergency

November 18, 1985

One of the biggest boosts the Quebec separatist movement ever got was when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau used and abused Canada`s War Measures Act in response to the 1970 kidnaping of two provincial officials. Invoking the act, which was passed in the hysterical and dictatorial days of World War I, Mr. Trudeau imposed martial law on Montreal and trampled on civil rights so savagely that at one point he had innocent people dragged from their homes.

The angry backlash helped propel Renee Levesque and his militant Parti Quebecois into provincial power. The injuries to Canada`s political and social fabric have lingered to this day.

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who was elected with healthy majorities in both English and French Canada, has now called for the repeal of the hated law and for its replacement with a set of measures designed to deal with four different levels of emergency--major accidents or disasters, civil

disobedience and terrorism, international crises and ultimately war itself.

``If there is an emergency now,`` said Associate Defense Minister Harvie Andre, ``the only recourse the government would have is to declare the War Measures Act.``